Genus Two Meromorphic Conformal Field Theory

Abstract

We construct the genus two (or two loop) partition function for meromorphic bosonic conformal field theories. We use a sewing procedure involving two genus one tori by exploiting an explicit relationship between the genus two period matrix and pinching modular parameters. We obtain expressions for the partition function for the chiral bosonic string, even rank lattice theories and self-dual meromorphic conformal field theories including the Moonshine Module. In particular, we find that for self-dual theories with central charge 24, the genus two partition function multiplied by a universal holomorphic function of the moduli is given by a meromorphic Siegel modular form of weight 2 where this universal function includes ghost contributions. We also discuss a novel expansion for certain Siegel modular forms.